The Karnataka High Court annulled a criminal case against Malayalam filmmaker Ranjith, who faced sexual assault accusations from a man with an aspiration to become an actor in December 2012.
The alleged incident reportedly occurred at a hotel near Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport (KIA).
Justice SR Krishna Kumar issued the order, granting Ranjith's petition, which challenged the First Information Report (FIR). Authorities had registered the FIR under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (unnatural carnal intercourse with any woman, man or animal) and provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The Bengaluru city police registered the FIR on October 26, 2024, after the Kerala State police transferred the complaint to Bengaluru. The actor had initially filed the complaint with the Kerala police.
While allowing the filmmaker’s petition against the FIR, the court stated that it would produce a detailed order at a later date.
Last December, the court suspended the investigation into the case, noting a crucial discrepancy: the hotel where the alleged offense supposedly took place did not exist in 2012.
"The complaint is patently false," the court observed when staying the probe. It highlighted that the Taj hotel, adjacent to the international airport, began operations only in 2016, four years following the alleged incident, and that the information remains in the public domain.
The court also emphasised that the vivid narration regarding the incident at Taj hotel is not true and a canard.
Furthermore, even as the court stayed the investigation, it pointed out the complainant's unexplained 12-year delay in lodging the complaint. It termed the complaint a "clear instance of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything)."
The complaint had alleged that the director asked the complainant-actor to visit him in a fourth-floor room of the hotel around the airport in December 2012 and subjected him to sexual abuse.
It also claimed the director captured the complainant's naked pictures and sent those to a female actor in Kerala.